


A How-To Guide to Love and Marriage, for People Who Hate Both

by boombangbing



Category: Big Bang Theory, Wizards of Waverly Place
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-12
Updated: 2011-06-12
Packaged: 2017-10-20 08:30:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/210793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boombangbing/pseuds/boombangbing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Justin went off to college, he thought he might actually be able to strike out on his own. Yeah, right. No matter where he goes, Alex is always going to rain down her own special kind of insanity on him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A How-To Guide to Love and Marriage, for People Who Hate Both

**Author's Note:**

> Oh man. This fic has been both awesome and awful to right. I based this around the concept of a screwball comedy, which I think works for both shows. This is definitely more Wizards heavy, with major guest roles from the Big Bang guys. Did I mostly write this because I wanted Alex/Dean fic? Maybe a little. Written for [crossbigbang](http://crossbigbang.livejournal.com). Art by skylar0grace [here](http://skylar0grace.livejournal.com/84939.html). [Sequel to _The Proper Care and Keeping of Nerds_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/159563).

Penny's cell rings as she gets out of her audition. “Yeah, well... Maybe I'll call you!” she shouts as they shut the door in her face. Damn it, and she had a really good feeling about this one.

She flips her cell open. “Yeah?” she snaps. It's probably Sheldon calling to tell her that Leonard's broken both legs and that she'll need to pick up the Chinese food.

“Is this... Polly?” the voice says slowly.

“Do you mean Penny?” she asks.

“Right! Penny, Penny, I'll remember that. Hey so, Penny, this is Alex Russo, do you remember me?”

Penny's eyebrows climb. “From the robot competition? What's up?”

“Yeah, well.” Alex pauses, and Penny can hear her tapping her fingers on a hard surface. “The thing is, my brother got accepted to Caltech and he wants to take you up on that offer from last year.”

“Offer? What... Do you mean a date?”

“Uh huh, that'd be the thing.”

She steps off the curb and crosses the road, not bothering to look both ways. A car screeches and a guy yells out his window at her. “And why isn't he calling me himself?” she asks, flipping the bird in the driver's general direction.

“Because he's a giant chicken. Sometimes literally,” Alex adds.

Penny chooses to ignore the second part; from the brief amount of time she spent with Alex last year, she worked out that eighty percent of the time Alex made no sense whatsoever. “Um. Yeah, sure. I mean, if he's around we could go out for a drink.”

“Hey,” Alex says, her voice sounding distant. “She said yes.”

“ _Really? Cool!_ ” Penny hears in the background. It's a male voice. She cringes: she is definitely already regretting this.

-

Justin moves to California in August. His dad actually buys them all plane tickets and they spend a couple of days in California together before his family have to go back home. His parents cry when they leave, Max becomes obsessed with the vending machine at the airport, and Alex punches Justin in the arm.

“Don't get squarer than you already are at NerdTech, you hear me?” she waves her finger at him, her expression self-consciously emotionless.

“Okay,” he says, wraps an arm around her, and kisses the top of her head.

“Oh my God, _ew_ ,” she cries, but he sees the smile on her face before she collects Max and their parents and directs them to their gate.

Within two months of starting at Caltech, both Justin and Zeke (who completely freaked out at the thought of going to university without his best friend) have been thrown out of their dorms, for an explosion of small scale and 'improper use of mini fridges and soldering guns' respectively. Alex sounds almost proud when he relays this story over the phone.

They move into an apartment together in November, in a pretty nice area of South Pasadena. It's a struggle to make the rent sometimes, but they both work: Justin as a waiter, and Zeke as the guy dressed as a giant hotdog handing out flyers.

Everything's going pretty great for Justin: people treat him like an adult, not the goofy older brother of Alex, and he even has a date tonight. He's been seeing Penny for a month or so, and she doesn't even have a problem with his fits of geekiness, most of the time.

As with most things in his life, it is truly too good to last.

-

Justin gets a lot of time alone in the apartment, since Zeke's keeps himself busy with numerous clubs and leagues (the Cloggers of America Society, the California chapter of the Alien Language League, the Robot Fighting League, a science fiction film club, a science fiction book club, Caltech's glee club, and a knitting circle, to name a few). He gets up at six every morning while Justin is still asleep, and gets home at nine in the evening, when Justin is either out with Penny or watching illegally downloaded movies.

Justin finds that he just doesn't want to join extracurricular activities like he used to; he's a member of the Fighting League (because, really, what would life be without the RFL?), the film society, and he puts newly honed tutoring skills to good use tutoring high school students in chemistry, but except for that he doesn't occupy his free time with pseudo-social activities any more.

In December, he gets his first B-, and at the end of his first year, his GPA is 3.85. He isn't terribly upset, but he still tells everyone he got a 4.0.

Mostly, he just works, goes to his classes, and hangs out with Penny's friends. Who don't really like him, but they have a lot of video games, and being liked by each other doesn't seem like it's high on their friendship criteria.

He guesses that after losing the Wizard Competition to Max (Max!), the world changed. Without the constant reminder of how he had to excel over the heads of everyone else, he finally worked out how to unwind (unclench, Alex would probably say). And California is definitely the state to unwind (unclench) in.  
For the first couple of weeks – okay, the first couple of _months_ (and they've only been dating for _one_ month), the guys give Penny shit about going out with someone younger than her.

“I'm only twenty-five, you know,” she tells them. “That's only, like, a six year age difference.”

Howard still manages to get in a couple of 'doesn't he have a curfew' jokes before she threatens to throw his favourite pair of pants out the window.

Justin... is sweet. And hot, and a really fast learner (which, really, has been invaluable to her). And, if he keeps his mouth shut, almost passes as a normal person around her normal friends.

“Wow, this place is really nice,” she comments as they walk into the restaurant he picked for their date. There are, like, tablecloths and napkins folded like swans on all the tables.

“I just wanted to do something special,” he says. “It is our six week anniversary.”

She stares at him. If Howard heard this, man, he'd never give her a break.

“Is that lame?” he asks.

“Little bit.”

She orders the cheapest thing on the menu, because she's seen the dearth of items in his apartment and sees him checking his wallet when he thinks she isn't watching. They talk about his family (a bit, he only ever speaks in generalities about them), about Nebraska, about her career. They even talk about World of Warcraft, and she confesses to her brief addiction. He is very understanding.

They're about halfway through, and she's beginning to contemplate inviting him back to her place afterwards, when his phone rings.

“Hi, Max,” he says, smiling apologetically across the table at her. “What do you want? I'm kind of busy … I'm on a date … Not a date tree, a date. With a woman … Uh huh … Uh huh … Uh huh … Yeah, that's not going to grow back, you need to go to the hospital. You need to go to a _special_ hospital, you know what I mean? … Why don't you ask Dad? … Well, I'm sure he won't turn you over to the authorities … No, I can't sort it out for you. I'm in California … I'm on a date, Max … Not a date tree. Why don't you put Alex on?”

He covers the phone with his hand. “I am so sorry about this.”

“No, no, you go right ahead,” she replies. She wonders if it's too early in their relationship to ask prying questions like, 'what won't grow back?'.

“Hey, Alex … You know you're going to have to take him to the hospital, right? … Well, there are certain kinds of hospitals that deal with that kind of mishap … Why don't you just look it up? … There's a directory in the l-- in the den … Yes, it's a book, try not to pass out … I can't deal with it, I'm in California, and I'm on a date … _No_ , with Penny. I haven't played Second Life in months … Just-- just tell Dad, okay. I have to go, goodbye.” He removes the phone from his ear, and for a split second Penny hears Alex still talking before he ends the call. He closes his cell phone and carefully drops it into his coat pocket, avoiding eye contact.

“Um,” he says. “Sorry about that.”

“Really, it's fine,” she says, and presses her foot against his leg. He squirms slightly in his seat.

“I didn't really want you to know about my Second Life habit, so early on in the relationship.”

“Believe me,” she says, and slides her foot further up his leg. “I've heard much, much worse. You know, I'm not really hungry any more, why don't we get out of here?”

Justin practically bounds towards the door.

-

So, by the time Penny gets Justin into her bedroom, and her bed, and he's stripped off his shirt to reveal a happy surprise beneath (like, she's never seen abs like that on a nerd before), she comes to a realisation.

She realises that Justin is clearly a virgin.

“Oh my God, don't tell me I'm your first girlfriend,” she asks. Those cradle-robber comments that Howard made seem so much truer now.

“No!” Justin says vehemently, sitting back and pulling the sheets around his torso. “No, it's just that... I've dated a lot of girls who were-- physically stronger than me, you could say, so coitus was never really an option.”

She stares at him. He looks at her for a couple of seconds, then at his hands. Finally she says, “Don't say 'coitus'.”

-

Afterwards, Penny catalogues in her head the reasons why dating someone younger than her is a good thing. _Enthusiasm_ is at the top of the list.

His cell phone rings.

She catches his arm as he moves to reach down for it. “Just leave it. Come on, we could... go again, if you want.”

He bites his lip, looking pained. “I-- I really have to answer it.”

She rolls her eyes and flops back down as he grabs the phone off the floor and answers it.

“Alex, what the hell do you want? … Uh huh … Uh huh … Uh huh … Backwards? Yeah, now he really has to go to the hospital … No, I'm on a date … The same date … Look, I'm not discussing this with you! Have you told Dad about Max's problem? … Well, tell him to get up off the floor … Hi, Dad … If you'd stop laughing for a minute … Yeah, well, you're gonna have to take him to the hospital soon if you don't want that to be permanent … You know, if you'd just read that parenting book when I got it for you … No, I can't. I'm in _California_. And I'm on a date … No, not Juliet. She hobbled into the forest, remember? … Okay, okay, you're going to have to deal with this on your own. Okay? … I'm hanging up now … No, I'm really hanging up now … I'm hanging up.” He lowers the phone, then quickly adds, “Love you,” before hanging up for real.

“So,” he says.

“You are a very strange guy,” she says, then leans in and kisses him.

 **Summer**

“Why are you wearing so many goddamn layers?” Penny growls, tossing his sweater onto the floor as he hits the bed. “It's seventy five degrees outside!”

“I don't know! I get cold! And my t-shirt had a stain on it from work...” He pulls her sweater vest over her head and starts working on the buttons of her shirt as she struggles with his t-shirt. Eventually, they get the hang of undressing each other without pausing in their making out, and Justin flips them over so that he's on top.

“You are _really_ getting the hang of this,” she says before he covers her mouth with his. He runs his hands up her back; she moans and hooks a leg around one of his, pushing up against him until they find a rhythm.

The doorbell rings.

“It's probably just Mrs Esposito wanting to be let in,” he rumbles against her cheek. That woman is always losing her keys.

He ducks down, kissing the space between her breasts. This relationship has gone from zero to one hundred in just a few months, which is amazing considering how long it usually takes him just to speak to a girl. He wonders what his parents would think if they saw him now. Well, not _now_ now, in flagrante delicto, but the new Justin in general. He even cried off work early, claiming to be sick when Penny came in after her shift.

Penny slides her fingers into his hair, and the doorbell rings again. “Do you think it's that complete series blu-ray boxset of Battlestar Galactica that you ordered last week?” she says between gasps. The words 'Battlestar' and 'Galactica' have never been more of a turn on to him as they are right now.

“That came yesterday,” he mumbles.

She tugs on his hair and pulls his face back up to hers. And then, she's sucking on his jaw in that way that she knows he likes: enough teeth to hurt, not so much that it'll leave a mark.

The doorbell rings a third time. He squeezes his eyes shut and turns his head to give her access to the rest of his jaw. “If it's important, they'll come back.”

“Yeah,” Penny agrees, hooking her other leg around his waist.

“Oh _my_.”

Justin stills, Penny a second later. Her nails bite into his arms.

“If I'd known you were gonna be naked, I'd've brought my camera.”

He turns his head to the door as Penny gathers the sheets up around them.

Alex and Max.

Alex and fucking Max are watching him have sex with his girlfriend.

“If I'd known you were going to be visiting,” he says calmly, “I would have told you to: _go away_.”

His siblings smile twin vacant smiles at him, but he knows only one of them is for real.

“ _Go away!_ ” he shouts. Alex holds her hands up.

“No need to get upset, Justin. Even the birds and the bees do it. Come on, Max, let's see if he has any Nutella.”

Max obediently follows her out, rambling about Nutella.

-

“What are you doing here?!” Justin yells at them as they make themselves comfortable on the couch. He struggles with his t-shirt for a moment before yanking it down to his hips.

“Your shirt is inside out, and back to front,” Alex says. “I can see the name tag Mom sewed in it.”

He crosses his arms over his chest. “How did you even get in here?”

Alex and Max share a look. Justin knows it well from personal experience; it's the 'follow my lead' look. “Would you believe me if I said Zeke let us in?”

“Zeke's at a Clog-Until-You-Drop dance, so no, I wouldn't believe you if you said he let you in,” Justin says.

“Then... I can't tell you how we got in.” She looks pointedly at Max, then leans over to look behind Justin.

Penny is leaning against the bedroom door, still wrapped in his sheet. “Hi,” she says, clutching the sheet tighter to her body. “Maybe I should just go...”

“No, no!” Justin looks back at Alex and Max; Alex is barely hiding an evil grin, and Max looks confused. Business as normal, then. “They're gonna be going.”

“How are you dating _her_?” Max says, his eyes not straying from Penny. Alex motions to Max and nods enthusiastically.

“Oh, _Justin_ ,” Alex says, hopping up from the couch. She drapes an arm around his shoulders and smiles unnervingly at him. “You're such a joker, but I know you're happy to see us. Let's go out and do a little bonding. Somewhere... classy. I'm sure you want to show Penny off to us.”

She's still smiling, and it's still unnerving him. She pats him on the chest and turns to Penny. “What do you say? Justin's paying.”

Penny shrugs. “I guess. If Justin's paying.”

“Then it's settled!” Alex throws her hands up in delight. “Justin, why don't you put on a shirt that Max wouldn't wear, and we'll meet you by the car.”

-

Alex and Max squabble about something on the back seat as Justin stares resolutely at the road in front of him, jaw set. Penny looks at him a couple of time, and pats his knee.

“It'll be okay, honey.”

“That's what you think,” he mutters, gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles turn white.

“'Honey'!” Alex cackles, then quiets for a moment before squealing. “Ew, Max, you are such a pig!”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

“Am _not_!”

“Are too, are too, are t--” Her voices dies, only to be replaced by a snort.

Justin stiffens. He glances into his rear view mirror. Alex is holding her hands to her mouth, fingers spread out across her nose. It doesn't stop him from seeing the snout, though.

“Max!” he shrieks, almost veering off the road.

Penny sinks down in her seat, unaware of the spells going on in the backseat. Max goes through a several animal's snouts before getting Alex's nose back.

They go to IHOP. (“I thought you wanted to go somewhere 'classy',” Justin said through gritted teeth. “It has 'international' right in the name, Justin, duh!” Alex replied.) Alex orders a Belgian waffle combo, and Max asks if he can have four stacks of chocolate pancakes.

“Of course you can, sweetie,” Alex replies indulgently, patting him on the head.

“Yes, just spend all my money on pancakes, _please_ ,” Justin adds.

Max lights up, squirming in his seat as the waitress notes his order. “Thanks, guys! You're best siblings ever!”

“Oh, good God,” Justin mumbles.

“I'll just stick with the free water,” Penny says carefully. The waitress stares at her dully. “Hey, don't give me that look. I know how much you hike your prices up!”

“Wow, Penny, it must be awesome dating my brother.” Alex leans forward, propping her chin on her hands. “I mean, free water? You can't get that just anywhere.”

Penny takes Justin's hand where it hangs between their seats. “He has good points too, you know.” Or not. She hopes Alex doesn't know the particular good points that she means. It took months to get that particular piece of Howard wisdom out of her head. Thankfully Alex just screws her face up in disgust.

“My brother is a eunuch, thank you very much,” she says.

“That's a very big word for you,” Justin says.

“I read it in your diary,” Alex shoots back.

“You did not, I never wrote about that in my diary!”

“No, but you wrote about your masturbatory fantasies about that weather girl!”

“Then I'm not a eunuch, am I?” he says just a touch too loudly, and the people at the next table glance up at him.

Penny squeezes his hand harder, until it starts to hurt them both. “Why don't you just shhh for a while?”

“Okay,” he says quietly.

Their orders come, or more accurately Alex and Max's come, the waitress just sullenly refills Justin and Penny's glasses of water. Alex attacks her waffle with an astounding level of ferocity.

“So,” Penny says, sipping her water and trying to ignore whatever the hell Max is doing with his pancakes. “What are you going to do in California? Got any sightseeing lined up?”

“And more importantly, when are you leaving?”

Alex purses her lips at Justin. “Well, Max wants to go to Disneyland.” She pauses to let Max get 'woo, Disneyland!' out of his system, and they all look at the pancake structure he's building. “Leaning tower of pancakes,” she says.

“Fairly accurate, too.” Justin says.

“Anyway,” Alex continues, “he wants to go to Disneyland--” 'woo, Disneyland!' “--and I want to stake out Universal Studios and steal an item of someone's underwear to sell on Ebay.”

“How nice for you. When are you leaving?” Justin repeats.

Alex bites her lip. “Well now, that's the thing...”

“Don't tell me you're staying all summer,” he says.

“I wasn't going to tell you that,” she says, and he breathes a sigh of relief. “We're moving to California!”

His eyebrows jump up his face, then drop. “Wh-- what?”

“Me and Max, we're moving out here.” She grins, and Penny has the sudden very real concern that Justin might drop dead of a heart attack.

“Wh-- what, but... But school. School, Max has to go...” he stammers out, his hands fluttering.

“Yeah, 'bout that. Max dropped out of high school.” Alex pats Max on the back as he squeezes chocolate sauce all over his pancake tower, miming mini explosions.

“ _What_? Why? When? Did you have something to do with this, Alex? I know you hate learning things, but this is low, even for you!”

Alex sits back in her chair, lays her hand over her heart. “I am offended and hurt by that, brother. I shall have you know that I've been accepted into the Art Center College of Design for this fall. I take my education _very_ seriously!” She holds her shocked expression for a few moments before it cracks. “Your face! Nah, I'm kidding, I'm totally not offended.”

Justin's features settle into some kind of squint/glare/twitch combination that might actually stick if he's not careful.

Alex blinks once, and says, “But I'm not kidding about the college. I totally got in.”

“And where are you going to live?” Justin practically whispers.

“With you, of course!”

“There are only two beds.” He keeps his voice low, almost dangerous sounding.

Alex waves him off. “Not a problem. You've got a couch, right? I'll take the bed, you guys can have the couch.”

By now, Justin is blushing furiously, and doesn't look up when he speaks. “You expect me to sleep on the couch with Max?”

“Oh, _fine_. Max can sleep in the bathtub.”

Max's head shoots up. “Hey, cool, I always wanted an en-suite!”

-

Justin doesn't get angry, or at least Penny's never witnessed it. In fact, the first thing that struck her about him (other than the whole 'being hot' thing) was how tolerant he is. He'll spend all day with her buying shoes, clean the bathroom after she gets wasted and throws up everywhere, and he'll even sit and listen to Sheldon's lectures without beating him to death. That's how he got his job at Giacomo's; the owner saw how easily he dealt with Sheldon and hired him on the spot, on the basis that Justin must work Thursdays and always serve Sheldon when he's on shift. She wasn't even sure if he ever got more than mildly annoyed at things.

Today though, Penny's having to rethink her original impression of him. They leave IHOP quickly, since people are beginning to stare, and on the ride home, he mounts the curb twice and doesn't say a word.

When they finally get back to the apartment (and Penny swears she didn't breathe at all the trip there, the tension was so thick), the first thing he says is, “I'm calling Dad. He is going to come pick you two up.”

“Good luck with that,” Alex says, throwing herself onto the couch. “'cause they know we're here.”

“They know Max has dropped out of high school and the two of you have come to California to ruin my life?”

She bobs her head. “Yup.”

“And... they were okay with this?”

“Well, you know.” She rolls her eyes and shifts around on the couch to look at him. “There was this whole big melodramatic fight, but, in the end, we all agreed that me and Max are beyond help.”

“That I can believe,” he mutters. “But I'm still calling them.” He fixes her with an evil stare, but she just shakes her head and grabs the TV remote.

Penny sits on the one lone chair in the living room, alternately watching whatever Alex has on (a zombie sorority horror movie), watching Max systematically dismantle everything in the kitchen cupboards, and watching Justin talk very very quickly on the phone as he strides from room to room.

He finishes this conversation with, “I'm buying you parenting lessons for Christmas! Tell Mom I love her.”

Penny leaves soon after, claiming a headache. Justin asks her to take him with her, only half joking.

-

The next day is a Thursday; Penny joins the guys on their trip to Giacomo's (Leonard explains that they've amended the room mate contract, and that once every two months, Sheldon has to leave the apartment and function in a somewhat social situation – this was mostly due to his mother's insistence that nobody ever became closer to God by spending all their time alone, doing He up above only knew what). She tags along because she hasn't heard from Justin and when she called the apartment, Alex just laughed and laughed down the phone, then hung up.

“Russo!” the owner yells, eyeballing Sheldon.

Justin stumbles out from the back, hair a mess and orange stains on his shirt. She bites her lip; it doesn't look like he's slept at all since she last saw him.

“I'm having the best day _ever_ ,” he says when he gets to the table, staring down at Sheldon. “The house special, medium, without salami or pepperoni, with sausage – black pepper, no fennel seeds or chilli – chanterelle mushrooms, and light olives, right? Heated to exactly 375 degrees Fahrenheit for nine minutes and then brought out to you no more than one minute and fifty seconds later?”

Sheldon sits up in his seat, and takes a deep breath.

“And a Coke Zero,” Justin finishes.

“Yes, thank you,” Sheldon mutters, hunching over in his seat sullenly.

“Hey, Leonard,” Howard says. “When you finally snap and throw yourself out the window, Justin here can take custody of Sheldon. Isn't that nice?”

“Yeah, great,” Leonard says. He gives his order to Justin, then shoves the menu into his hands. Penny's tried to encourage them to get along, but apparently telling Leonard that Justin is just like him didn't help the situation.

“Honey, how are you doing?” she asks, stopping Justin's hand as he goes around the table collecting the rest of the menus. He rubs his eyes and smiles tiredly.

“Well. Turns out that the couch is really uncomfortable to sleep on, Alex doesn't go to bed until two in the morning, and Zeke clogged until his feet bled and I had to take him to the ER at four in the morning. We were there for six hours. And then I had to bring him here with me because he reacted badly to the pain relief they gave him, and I didn't want him to drown while taking a shower. And he can't walk, so I had to carry him from the car.”

“Oh.” She squeezes his arm. “Oh, honey, I'm sorry. Why don't you stay with me tonight?”

“That'd be nice,” he says as Leonard sighs loudly. “But, I don't think I can leave Zeke alone tonight. And I certainly can't leave him in Alex's care.”

“Russo!” his boss yells. “Your friend got into the cupboard of clean dishes, that's coming out of your wage!”

-

On Halo Night, Leonard suggests that Penny and Justin come over, 'to bond with the group!'. Penny's already put her good underwear on, and she knows that Leonard's trying to subtly sabotage her relationship, with his innocent smiles and his adorable fidgeting. She'd been planning to take Justin to a new club that had opened, and try to teach him how to dance.

“It's not like he'll even be able to get into that club,” Leonard says airily.

“He... has a fake ID,” Penny answers, but she knows that she's lost the conversation. “I'll call him and see what he thinks.”

On the phone, Justin says 'thank God', and at her silence explains, 'I couldn't find a babysitter for Alex and Max, so they're coming along too'.

When they arrive, Penny answers the door in the dress she had picked out for the club: short, tight, black.

“Oh,” Justin says. He fixes his eyes somewhere around her waist.

“Yeah,” she says. “I guess I'll have to get changed.”

Justin makes a sound in the back of his throat, like a whine, and inclines his head. “I'm sorry.”

“Yeah,” she repeats, and leans into him. His hand curves to her waist, pulling her closer.

“Hi,” he says against her lips.

“Hey,” she replies and pushes up onto her toes to deepen the kiss.

“Oh, oh, time out, red card, get off the field!” Alex slaps her hand over Max's eyes. “You're _corrupting_ the children, Justin!”

“Why don't you help me choose something to wear to Halo Night?” Penny asks, taking Justin's hand. Alex shakes her head and hustles Max over to 4A without removing her hand from his eyes.

Justin and Penny make it over ten minutes later; Alex looks up briefly from the screen, takes in Justin's ruffled hair and Penny's red lips, and sighs disgustedly.

“Hey, budge up,” Justin says, and stoops to reach for a controller.

“No, no, no, no, no,” Sheldon says, and Justin freezes. “It is two minutes past eight. The game started at eight. It is now eight oh two.”

Justin glances down at his watch. “When you're right, you're right,” he says, and straightens up. “My brother and sister are going to wipe the floor with you, anyway.”

“Ha!” Sheldon raises his eyebrows comically. “I hardly think so.”

-

“Wow.” Penny picks at the bowl of chips on the counter. Howard has just thrown his controller across the room and flounced away in anger to join Raj and Justin and her in the kitchen. He grabs a handful of chips and crunches on them loudly.

“Goddamnit, earlier he asked me if I worked on Thomas the Tank Engine because it was the only engine he could think of; how is he _winning_?”

Justin shrugs. “Max was practically raised on _Halo_. He's reduced grown men to tears before now.”

“And it looks like he will again,” Penny comments. The look on Sheldon's face is so intense that she thinks he might actually be able to blow someone's head up with his mind.

Alex isn't doing too badly either, even if she does spend most of the time yelling at the screen and high-fiving Max. It works for her.

Justin takes a sip of his coffee, and can't help but smile as Leonard slumps down in his chair in defeat. His sister is occasionally good for something.

“How many cups have you had?” Penny asks. She looks pointedly at his foot, which quite unbeknownst to him is tapping out something akin to Morse code.

“Oh,” he says, making an effort to still it. “I don't know. I'm taking on so many extra shifts because of Zeke being out of action, and having two more mouths to feed,” he raises his voice so they can hear him. Alex waves vaguely at him. “I'm tired all the time.”

“You know, there are a couple of positions open at the Cheese Cake Factory: waitress and busboy, maybe Alex and Max should apply.”

“Really?” Justin looks over at his siblings. “Hey, tomorrow I'm writing you two résumés and we're gonna get you those jobs.”

“I can't drive,” Max says vaguely.

Justin rubs his face. “I probably don't want to know but: why would that be a problem?”

“I can't drive a bus.” Max looks up from the game, but his hands keep going on the controller. Sheldon practically drops his.

“I--” Justin pushes his coffee cup aside. “That's not what being a busboy is, Maxie. You collect dirty dishes from tables? Like what you did at the Sub Station? Do you remember that?”

Max's eyebrows knit together, but his hands keep on going. It's really quite mesmerising.

Justin shakes his head. “It doesn't matter, don't worry about it.”

“Okay.” Max glances back at the screen and mashes a button. Sheldon cries out in horror, dropping his controller for real this time.

“This is-- this is--” He stands up. “I have better things to be doing with my time!” With that, he storms from the room, stomps down the hall, and slams his bedroom door shut.

“Okay,” Justin says. He walks over to the sofa and picks up a controller. “Let's end this now.”

He sits down.

“Prepare to die.”

-

A week later, Alex and Max have jobs. Alex tries everything to get out of it; sabotages the interview with all the worst stories of her time at the Sub Station, gives a thesis on the ways in which she has no work ethic, insults multiple aspects of the running of the establishment-- everything. They still hire her.

“It's a good thing my boss has low standards,” Penny says as she serves the guys their food. Justin has just dropped by to see how his siblings are getting on, and he's more than a little concerned about the modifications Alex has made to her uniform. Her skirt is significantly shorter than Penny's, her blouse is dark shade of red, her sweater vest has a tear running down the middle... She's getting a lot of tips, and Justin doesn't like it.

“Well, this is the man who hired you, so we mustn't be too surprised,” Sheldon says.

Penny slams his food down a little too hard. “Just remember, that kid--” She points to Max, who's abandoned his plastic box in favour of balancing several dirty dishes on his arms. “beat you. Have a nice meal.”

-

Justin gets home from work at six; Zeke is almost fully healed now (last night Justin had to remove the bandages for him – he drew the line at pumicing Zeke's feet), and Alex and Max have jobs, for the time being, so he finally has some time to relax.

He shrugs off his jacket and throws his keys onto the kitchen counter. The shower is running, and as he passes by the door, he calls out, “hey, Zeke, you wanna have Thai tonight?”

There's no answer, but he's not surprised; Zeke is probably trying to juggle the soap, shower head, and one of his crutches. He should have waited for Justin to get home.

In his room, Justin strips off his work t-shirt and changes into one of his neatly pressed hoodies. If it just so happens to be his Caltech science faculty hoody, that's only good fortune. The shower shuts off in the next room, and he heads back out to talk to Zeke. And--

He stops.

And--

“This is definitely not how I imagined you'd see me naked for the first time,” Harper says. Her hair is wet and plastered to her neck and back (it's got long since last he saw her), and there's water running down her-- her things.

“Harper,” he says, voice at a pitch that only dogs must be able to hear. “Could you cover up... that area, please?” He waves vaguely at her midsection, trying to both look and not look at the same time.

“Oh, right.” She disappears into the bathroom for a second, then reappears wrapped in a towel. “Long time, no see,” she says, smiling.

“Why are you... why are you naked in my apartment?”

“I was having a shower,” she replies.

“And... why were you having a shower here?”

“Because I got finger paint all over me.”

“And, and--” He pauses to take a breath, staring at her hair that seems even redder than it was before.

“Oh, wait, I see what you're getting at!” Harper exclaims. “I got into the Art Center College of Design!”

“I thought you were going to the Pratt Institute?” he says. This is Alex and Max watching him have sex with Penny all over again, except now he's on the receiving end of unexpected nudity.

“I was, but Zeke was having separation anxiety. What was I supposed to do?”

Now, that's true enough. Zeke has come to him late at night for a hug one too many times.

“And, uh, let me guess.” He clears his throat. “You're going to be living with us?”

“Yup,” she says.

“With Alex in my bed, and me on the couch, and Max in the bathtub?”

She shrugs. “I'll be sharing Zeke's room; you can keep the couch.”

“Are you going to be paying rent?” he asks quietly.

She holds her towel closer to her body in an offended manner. “Of course, Justin! I'm not _Alex_.”

He stares at the wet patch she's making on the carpet underneath her feet. “Well, okay then.”

And with that, he grabs his keys and walks out of the apartment.

 **Fall**

The first day of Justin's second year at Caltech begins with a hysterical shriek that echoes throughout the apartment.

Justin's rolls off the couch and face plants into their grimy old rug.

“Fire?” he mumbles, pulling his blanket over his head. At school, they were taught to keep their nose and mouth covered, and to stay low to the ground in case of fire. Briefly he considers stop! drop! roll! but he doesn't think he's aflame quite yet.

“How _could_ you, Alex?” Harper yells, and oh. This is going to be so much worse than a fire. He sits up and pulls the blanket off his head.

Zeke is hunkered down in the kitchen over a glass of something unidentifiably green. He's on this new health kick – he wants to blend in with the 'beautiful people'.

“Don't go in there, man,” he says, looking at the bathroom door. “It's brutal.”

“What happened?”

“Remember the dress Harper was making for her first day at university?”

Justin remembers being scared to death one night when it launched itself at him as he walked through the bathroom door. He nods.

“Well, Alex put it in with the rest of laundry, and the dye hadn't set, so the colour ran in the washing machine-” He lifts an arm of his grungy pinkish t-shirt. “-and the sequins weren't heat-proof, so they melted in the dryer.”

Max bolts from the bathroom, drenched from head to foot. Behind him, Alex and Harper's voices rise in a crescendo of righteous anger. Max drips miserably.

Justin looks at him, then back at Zeke. “Alex did the laundry?”

-

Harper doesn't speak to Alex for the whole bus ride over to college; all she says, muttered and directed at the window, is ' _what_ are they going to think of me now?' as she pulls sadly at her plain white t-shirt.

That you aren't colour blind, Alex responds in her head, but Harper's still wearing a hoop skirt with pages from _Vogue_ sewn to it, so.

It doesn't matter that Harper's sulking, though, because Alex isn't worried. She is totally ready to begin her college experience. She is totally not worried that being cool in high school doesn't translate into being cool at college.

Totally.

-

By the time Justin's got through his first two classes of the morning and swung by Caltech's cafeteria – bypassing _Starbucks_ and _McDonalds_ and heading straight for the university's own suspiciously coloured slop – Zeke is practically vibrating with happiness.

“Oh my God!” he cries as he sits down across from Justin, and then proceeds to launch into great detail about his day so far.

His classes are _amazing_ , and his lab partner in Chemistry is a mature student, and he's _so cool_ and worldly and stuff, and his art history class is going on a field trip to a _gallery_ next week, and he already has _ten new Facebook friends_.

“What about you?” he asks Justin.

“Oh. Yeah, it's been good.” His physics professor called on people at random to answer his questions, and everyone got them wrong. Thankfully, he didn't ask Justin anything. “Hey, we'd better get going if we want to get a good seat in Quantum Mechanics.”

“Yeah!” Zeke bounces out of his seat and bounds across the cafeteria before Justin manages to push his chair back.

-

The lecture hall is already packed when they get there; it's a popular class, the professor has five stars on ratemyprofessor.com, and a hotness rating.

They squeeze in, pushing through until they find two empty seats in the back row. There's a backpack on one of the seats, and the guy next to it glares at Justin as he moves it.

The room is a cacophony of sound, talking and rustling of food wrappers. Justin has to lean right into Zeke to hear him talk even more about his awesome morning.

And then, silence; the few people still speaking or fiddling with their stuff are embarrassingly loud. Justin looks up.

Oh.

God.

“Good afternoon, class. Professor Carter won't be joining us. He has the clap and is currently under investigation by university authorities.” There's a ripple of laughter that's swiftly quelled. “They, in all their wisdom, have seen fit to distract me from my ground breaking scientific work so that I can teach this class, which I am both overqualified for and uninterested in.”

An entire row's worth of people get up and leave.

“You may address me as Dr Cooper,” Sheldon says.

-

“--and then he fell into the box of dirt.” The hipsters from her digital design class laugh as she nonchalantly sips from her cherry soy mocha chai latte. It's _awful_ , and it cost six dollars for a tiny cup of it, but it's what everyone else is drinking, and the café is donating all their proceeds to some obscure modern art exchange trip for disadvantaged youths or something.

“Your brother sounds _amazing_ ,” Roman says. He's from California, but he speaks with a weird transatlantic accent. An angry goth chick who sat in the corner muttered that he'd never even been out of the state. And that his real name was Kevin.

“Only if the definition of 'amazing' has changed,” she says. There's a smattering of laughter.

“Alex!” Harper bustles across the café, her skirt catching on bags and backs of chairs. “There you are! We're going to be late for workshop!”

The hipsters turn to look at Harper.

“Where did you get that skirt?” one of the girls, Ellen, asks.

Harper takes a half step back and tenses her shoulders. “I made it. Why?”

“I _love_ it,” Ellen says. “It's so... 1880s meet 1980s.”

Harper flushes. “That's exactly what I was going for!”

“Hey, do you have time for mocha tai soya coffee?” Alex asks. She leans back in her chair and steeples her fingers.

Harper smooths her hands over her skirt. “Well. I mean, I suppose one couldn't hurt.”

-

When Penny gets home from her audition (the guy propositioned her and she slapped him, so-- probably not going to happen), Justin is sitting outside her door, reading a book.

“Hey,” she says, and drops her shopping bag (maybe she bought herself some consolation shoes, so what?). “Whatcha reading?”

He snaps it shut. He looks quite wild-eyed. “Quantum mechanics textbook. Did you know that Sheldon is teaching a class this semester?”

“Oh no,” she says. “And...?”

“I'm taking it.” He folds his stretched out legs underneath him and pulls himself up. “It's a course requirement,” he whispers.

“Oh, baby.” She wraps her arms around him. “I think you could use a drink.”

-

At four in the morning, Alex is still awake, and _Lesbian Zombie Slayers 3000_ is on but she's not watching it. She's doing... schoolwork. It's an independent project due for the end of the course, but she actually _wants_ to do it now. It... it's making her feel vaguely uncomfortable, but she's past the point of no return, and she's already drawn ten possible designs. Somehow she has to convey herself through a medium she's not used to working with. She has no idea what that even means, but the designs keep coming, even if half of them suck.

The front door creaks open, rousing her from her drawing. The apartment is mostly dark, with just a lamp lighting her work since Harper stomped out at one AM and yelled at Alex that the light under the door was disrupting her sleep.

“And Zeke doesn't?” Alex had sneered, but then Harper threw a book at her.

So, she can only see the outline of Justin as he slips in the door and closes it slowly.

“Justin?” she says. “How long do comic book stores stay open in this town?”

“Shit,” he mutters, leaning his forehead against the door.

“Justin?” she repeats, and gets up off the floor. “Seriously, where have you been all night?”

He clears his throat and turns his head. “Nowhere.”

“That's a pretty cool trick,” she says. She flips on the light and shoots a silent prayer that Harper doesn't wake up again. “Nowhere must be pretty far away, huh?”

Justin rubs his face. “Yeah.”

She sniffs. Is that...? She takes a step closer to Justin, and he shuffles off towards the kitchen. “Are you _drunk_?” she asks, following him, tone somewhere mock scandalised and actual scandalised. Justin doesn't even know how to open a beer bottle.

“Um.” He scratches the back of his head with one hand, and searches for a glass with the other. He knocks over several other cups, and spills one of Harper's open containers of glitter. “Shit,” he mutters again. “I was. Like, a few hours ago. What time is it?”

“Four fifteen.”

“Oh.” He counts off on his fingers. “Like, three hours ago. But I'm totally fine now.”

“ _Right_. 'Cause you always start your sentences with 'like'. I bet you couldn't say the alphabet backwards right now.”

He turns around, a glass finally in his hand, the other holding onto the edge of the counter. A little _too_ hard, is you ask Alex. He screws up his face for minute. Then, “Shut up.”

“A plus comeback, big bro,” she says. This day has been fun _and_ weird: first she has a work ethic, now she's busted her straight arrow brother mid walk-of-shame? She's writing about this one in her diary.

Justin opens the fridge, and then stops. “Huh,” he says. “Maybe I am still drunk.”

He pushes the door back to reveal a room full of bean bags and open pizza boxes.

-

“Max, you cannot have your lair in the fridge.” Justin leans against the bathroom sink, bottle of Tylenol in hand, as Max untangles himself from his cocoon of blankets in the tub.

“But our lair was in the freezer back home!” he says.

“There's no rule that lairs have to be in cold storage,” Justin says. “In fact, it's probably a good idea to have the lair some place where guests aren't likely to look. Unlike, say, a _fridge_.”

Alex sniggers. It's nine am, and she feels like hell, but the lack of sleep is worth it to watch a hungover Justin try to have a battle of wits with Max.

“You're gonna have to move it,” Justin continues.

“But I just got it the way I like it! I can get to the ranch dressing and the chocolate milk and everything!”

From the living room, Zeke shouts, “Is the shower free yet? I have to be at work in half an hour!”

Alex leans her head out the door. “You're going to be spending the next six hours in a giant hotdog costume! It doesn't matter what you smell like!”

There's a pause, and then the sound of shuffling feet. “Good point!”

When she turns back to her brothers, Justin is dry swallowing Tylenol. “If I let you keep it, you have to remember to charm it closed whenever you're not there.”

“I will, I promise!” Max tries to stand up and the shower above him lets out a stream of water that drips down his neck. He grins. That'll be his shower for the week.

She follows Justin as he leaves the bathroom. “Did you just totally cave? Who are you?”

“Look, I've had four hours sleep, I have a three hour lab this morning, and my head is about to split open. Will you just give me a break for once, Alex?”

“Staying out all night, underage drinking?” She shakes her head, pursuing him around the apartment as he collects his things. “What kind of example are you setting for our baby brother?”

“ _Whatever_ , Alex.” He grabs his backpack and throws it over his shoulder.

“I don't even know you anymore!” she shouts as he walks out the door

-

Amy's preoccupation with 'girl time' is beginning to become a problem.

On Friday, she announces over Skype that further female bonding 'is necessary for the group'.

Penny sets down her bottle of nail varnish. “But we've female bonded already,” she says.

“Ah, but we have two new ingénues in our midst. It is imperative that we bring them into the fold.”

Penny stares at the screen and weighs up how much more annoying Amy will become if she just closes the laptop now. “Okay?”

“Additionally, family and teen dramas suggest that having strong interpersonal relationships with siblings of one's beau is advantageous. That's why I've begun a Facebook correspondence with Missy Cooper.”

“Does Sheldon know about that?”

“Goodness, no! When upset, Sheldon can be frightfully childish.” Amy says, face absolutely serious.

“Really,” Penny says, and Amy bobs her head.

By Saturday evening, Amy has corralled Bernadette, Alex, and Harper and directed them all to Penny's for a sleepover.

“I was told there would be pizza,” Alex says, looking around the apartment. She purses her lips for a second, then shrugs a shoulder.

“On the counter,” Penny says, throwing a thumb over her shoulder. Alex's eyes grow at least three times larger before she zips across the room towards it.

“So, what's the plan? There _is_ a plan, right?” Harper stands unnervingly close to Amy, though Amy doesn't seem to mind, staring at her with a level of intensity that doesn't quite match the furry slipper boots, flower patterned pants and button down pyjama top that she's wearing.

“Of course. First, we have pizza, tiny bottles of girly champagne and a selection of eighties movies ranging from such teen classics as _Say Anything_ and _Pretty in Pink_ to cult horror like _Re-Animator_ and _The Evil Dead_. After that, we'll play truth or dare with embarrassing yet hilarious results before talking through the night instead of sleeping.”

“Oh!” Harper grins and drops down onto the couch. “Let's get this party started!”

-

It wasn't even that bad, at first. Food was good, movies were good, Alex was funny in small, snarky doses.

And then, Amy just had to amend her timetable to inject a little girl talk into the evening.

“Variety is the spice of life, Penny!” she cries, bouncing on her couch cushion. Penny regrets not stopping her after her first half of the tiny champagne. “So,” she says expansively, “boys!”

“I'd rather not,” Alex mutters. That's a mistake.

Amy rounds on her. “Ah, but you're the only one here not attached, yet you're an averagely to above averagely attractive ballbuster; something I have on good authority that many men like that. So, what's up with that?”

Alex slides down in her chair. “I'm just off men right now.”

Amy rests her chin on her hands. “I see. So you're a lesbian. No shame in that, Penny and I have also dabbled in sapphic love.”

“Amy!” Penny shouts from the kitchen, only to be rewarded with a wink and a smile which she assumes is meant to be inconspicuous.

“Look, the last guy I was with... it didn't work out well, okay? We got together and broke up and got together and broke up again, and he acted like a prize-winning asshole. It reminded me that all men are douches.” Alex sighs. “Ugh, alcohol sucks.”

Harper claps her hands, eyes darting briefly to Alex. “Hey! I lost my virginity at a Renaissance Fair while in full costume as a milking wench. Zeke refused to take his Knight helmet off.” She twists her mouth sadly for a second. “So, anyway, discuss!”

-

For a week after the 'sleepover' (and ugh, she really did not need to think about Mason again), everywhere Alex turns she hears about weddings. Once Harper had so heroically changed the direction of the night's conversation – for which Alex bought her a coffee the next day without being asked – Bernadette had squeakily told them about her wedding plans with Howard. _Howard_ , of all people. Even tiny squeaky blondes could do better.

Anyway. That Amy Farrah Fawcett chick got really into it, and since then, she's been forwarding emails to the four of them about dresses and venues, as well as humorous anecdotes about 'bridezillas' and 'monsters-in-laws'. Alex doesn't even know how she got her email address.

Add to that Harper's new addiction to _Say Yes to the Dress_ , and Alex is living the life of a thirty year old career woman who's sad and alone while all her high school BFFs get hitched and have kids.

When the knock comes at the door, she practically launches herself off the couch, yelling, “I'll get it!” as she goes. She wrenches the door open, fully prepared to be converted by a Jehovah's Witness, if that's what it takes to have a conversation about something other than taffeta.

“Yo, Russo, you glad to see me or something?”

“I.” She takes a step back. “ _Dean_?”

“Dean?!” Harper yells from the couch, and stomps over a moment later.

“Hey... you,” he says, and she crosses her arms, face hardening into full on bitch mode. “Harper,” he adds, with that smile that got a lot of girls at school in trouble once.

Harper flings her arms open and pulls him into a hug. “Oh, Dean!” she says, “it's so good to see you again!”

Locked in her iron grip, he keeps on grinning, and shrugs his shoulders at Alex.

At least full thirty seconds after things have begun to get awkward, Harper lets him go and begins her retreat back to the couch. Her eyes remain on them though, Alex is sure, even with her back to Harper. She's quite certain Harper will tell Zeke everything the moment he looks at her, and then he, in turn, will blab to Justin. She looks forward to the lecture.

“So, hey,” she says, trying her best to block Harper's view with her body.

He hooks his thumbs into his belt loop. He's wearing a belt buckle with the words 'Moriarty Roofing: Plugging Your Holes Since 1988'. “Hey.”

“Did your Spidey-senses start tingling as you just happened to pass by?”

He cocks his head to one side and frowns. “Nah, your mom gave me your address.”

“Oh, good, 'cause I was worried that there were radioactive spiders running around the city again.” He's still wearing that same shirt, she notes. It's looking a little grody now, and the stitching around the name tag is coming loose. One day, she's going to ask who Doug is. Funny how she never has.

“You're real funny, Russo. I missed that. So, is Dick Whittington still around?”

“Dick...?”

“English guy. Had a cat.” He shrugs. “I took a Literature class in community college. Got my GED and everything.”

“Oh,” she says. “Well, Mason didn't like cats much. We broke up a while back.”

“Because of the cats?”

And the wolves and the vampires and the wizards. “Sure, why not? Why are you here, Dean?”

“Shit, you don't beat around the bush, do ya? I'm working for my aunt's roofing company.” He points at the belt buckle, for longer than is completely necessary.

“Nice crotch.” She notes with some satisfaction that his cheeks pink slightly. “ And you just had to come to California?”

“Needed the sunshine. I ai-” He twitches. “I'm not stalking you. Sorry, my English teacher was a real witch about talking pro-” Another twitch. “Speaking correctly.”

A _real_ witch, huh? “Good. I mean. About the stalking thing. _Twilight_ is so not my thing.”

“I guessed. Look, I wanna take you out. I know things didn't go so well last time, but if that whackjob's outta the picture, maybe I can court you, like a real gentleman?”

There are so many things about that that she doesn't know how to address. “Mason wasn't... whatever. Um. Court me?”

“Flowers, chocolate, you know.”

She meant it when she said she was off men. But. “Bring me chocolates and we can talk.”

“Score!” He holds his fist out to be bumped. It seems gentlemanly enough to her.

-

Their first new date is at the Cheesecake Factory. While she's on shift. Sitting out the back by the dumpsters, with food Alex has collected from the thoughtful people who only eat half their meals.

Dean talks about Ohio, and being in juvie with a guy who stole an ATM (and those things are a bitch to open, _Breaking Bad_ taught her that; he should have just stolen the cash register, those things pop open with a well placed thump of the fist), and reading Shakespeare for the first time.

“If I'd known the dude was into sex jokes, I totally woulda come to seventh grade.”

In turn, she doesn't really tell him anything. Half the stuff that happened since she last saw him she's not allowed to tell him anyway. Losing the wizard competition, Mason being taken into custody by the Monster Police Department (coincidentally because of Dean: apparently you can't eat people, even if they are retrieved unharmed), and that pretty much sums up the last year and a half of her life.

That's kind of sad.

“At least you have a cool job. I wish I got free food; all I got-” Twitch. (She really needs to look into that.) “-get is roofing tiles. Got a stack of them in my bedroom. Don't know what I'm going to do with them.”

“Yeah, cold pizza with other people's germs on it. I'm living the dream.” She brushes the crumbs from her plate into the trash can next to her.

“Yeah, I'm sorry I couldn't pay. I had to buy these sweet plates for my bike.”

“What kind of bike?”

“My dad's old Honda. He got put back into prison so I took it.” His dad the douchebag who left his ma when she was pregnant; he's told her about him too. “The plates are Harley, though. Wanna see, it's around front.”

He gets up and extends an orange-fingered, greasy hand to her. She really shouldn't. Like, she could actually get fired from this job for something like this.

But her hair looks so good rippling in the wind.

“Penny'll cover for me,” she says, feeling like she's in a movie from the 1950s.

-

Having Harper design the bridemaid's dresses was probably a bad idea, Penny reflects as Harper slides pins into the bodice she's wearing. She'll never not be amazed that you can buy amoeba-patterned silk.

“It looks lovely,” Bernadette says from her perch on a kitchen stool. She takes a long drink of her milkshake, the glass obscuring most of her face. Penny is sure she sees a smile somewhere in the depths of the pink milk.

“It's such a shame that _you_ can't wear it too,” Penny says through gritted teeth.

“I know, but my mom _really_ wants me to wear her old dress, and I can't say no to her.” She stirs her straw innocently. Funny how only a few weeks ago she was railing against her mother being so overbearing.

The front door opens and Alex comes in. She looks into the living room, with the colour swatches on the couch, and the sewing machine on the coffee table, and Penny standing on an upturned crate, and grimaces. “That was today, huh?”

Harper spits out the pins she's holding between her teeth. “Yes, Alex, that was today. Where have you been?”

Alex thinks. “At... work? Yeah, I was at work.”

“Funny, since I had to cover for you with Roy,” Penny says. “By the way, your second cousin's appendix burst.”

“Oh.” Alex lays her keys down on the kitchen counter. She backs up as Harper approaches her.

“Your hair looks especially _wind blown_ today,” Harper says, and she's right, it looks knotted and coarse. Alex raises a hand to her head. “And your tights are ripped.”

“Crazy weather out there,” Alex replies and retreats further behind the kitchen counter.

“Almost like you've been riding on a motorbike,” Harper continues. “ _Dean_ has a motorbike. I've seen him driving it around town.” She leans forward and eyeballs Alex.

“Fascinating,” Amy mutters from the couch.

“Well, it's really more of a scooter, but... Oh, God, all right!” Alex pushes Harper away with a light shove to her chest. “So, I went out with Dean, so what? _You_ hugged him when you saw him!”

Bernadette turns on her seat, watching across the counter as Alex goes to the fridge.

“You didn't wear a helmet!” Harper cries, pointing at the lack of a helmet outline on Alex's head.

“He's a careful--” Alex's voice dies as she opens the fridge. Bernadette's head blocks Penny's view, so she doesn't see the events leading up to the pigeon shooting out of the fridge.

Harper shrieks. Bernadette jumps out of her seat and says something that Penny doesn't quite catch amid the general pigeon-related confusion.

The pigeon disappears.

“Oh, it- it flew out the window,” Alex says, rushing across the room.

Penny straightens up from her crouching position. “The window's closed.”

“No, it isn't!” Alex says, and opens the window before slamming it shut again. “See?”

“You just opened the window and closed it again!” she says.

“I must concur,” Amy adds, still ensconced on the couch.

“Oh!” Harper shouts loud enough to make Penny almost fall off the crate. “Your pins have come loose! Stand still, I didn't do all that work for nothing!”

Harper continues to talk at an unreasonably loud level as Alex crosses back into the kitchen and makes sure the fridge door is firmly shut. Despite Harper's best efforts to change the direction of the conversation, Penny still notices the strange look that passes between Alex and Bernadette.

-

After Harper has finished all her fittings (Alex is sure those little needle stabs weren't the mistakes that Harper made them out to be), Alex calls Justin and tells him to take Penny out for dinner.

(“Why?” he asks.

“Because it's romantic,” she snaps.)

That done, she suggests that Amy might want to spend some alone time with Sheldon since she's pretty sure that Leonard is working late tonight (she isn't).

“Sheldon and I spend hours alone talking on Skype, we aren't due to talk again for another thirty six hours.”

“Just get out,” Alex says, hustling the two of them to the door. Bernadette tries follows them and Alex grabs her arm. “Not you, I want to talk to you about wedding-y things. Bye-bye,” she calls, shutting the door in Penny and Amy's faces. She turns to face Bernadette.

“You're a wizard.”

“What?” Bernadette squeaks.

“I saw the wand.”

Bernadette glances at Harper, who quickly looks back down at her sewing. “Are... you?”

“Used to be.” Alex sighs. “Sit down.”

They sit on the kitchen stools, and listen to sounds of flapping wings coming from the fridge for the second while Alex collects her thoughts.

“You lost the wizard competition?” Bernadette asks. Alex nods. “To Justin?”

“To Max.”

Bernadette's eyes widen. “Oh!”

“Yeah. He was meant to charm the lair closed, but apparently he forgot.”

Bernadette fidgets, picking at her nails. “So, Harper knows?”

“And Zeke. Penny and the others don't, do they?”

Bernadette shakes her head.

“And Howard isn't a wizard, is he?”

Bernadette shakes her head again.

So, really, the obvious question is... “You're gonna give up your powers. For _Howard_?”

Bernadette nods.

“ _Why?_ ”

“Because I love him.”

What the hell kind of reason is that? Between this, Penny being into Justin, and whatever Amy is, these guys are turning out to be complete freaks. “You guys are really weird, you know that?”

 **Winter**

Free for the first time in nineteen years, their parents go to Cabo for Christmas. Why Cabo? Because their dad likes the way it sounds. 'Caaaa-bo,' he says down the phone to Justin. Harper's parents are also away, spreading their particular brand of fun around Eastern Europe, and Zeke chooses to stay in California too, citing finals and fear of flying.

Christmas Day is pretty low key, eating mini turkey dinners in front of the television at Leonard and Sheldon's. The only thing that sets it apart, in fact, is Justin getting the courage to tell Penny he loves her.

She doesn't say it back.

-

Alex gets a lot of Christmas cards in the mail; she's popular, and people fear her, as they should. Among them she gets a card from her parents, (a postcard with palm trees and her father's illegible scrawl), a card from Hugh (it's the size of a postit note), cards from all her hipster art school friends (they're ironic post-post-modern), and a card from Mason. The return address is the WizTech Monster Rehabilitation Centre.

She puts that one away in a drawer.

-

Penny has to work on Christmas Day, and she gets back home well into the late afternoon to find Justin at Leonard's playing Mario Kart. She tries to sneak into her apartment, but he hears her and then there's mistletoe in the hall and kissing, and declarations of love...

And she doesn't say it back. She looks into his adorable, open face, and she can't say it, she _still_ can't say it. His face falls in stages until he backs up a step and looks at the floor.

“It's not that I don't _like_ you,” she says, and cringes. There is no way to make this sound better than it is. “I just--”

“Whatever. I have, I have work I need to do anyway.”

-

“Hey.”

Justin looks up from his spot on the couch as Alex passes. “Hey.”

“What're you watching?”

He scrutinises the television for a moment. “ _Gross, Creepy Swamp Monsters, 3_.”

“It's got nothing on four,” she says, and sits down next to him. “So, what's up with your face?”

He raises his hand to his cheek before he catches her smile. “Go away, Alex.”

“No, seriously, your face is all frowny. Did you screw things up with Penny? I haven't seen her in a while.”

Two weeks. It's January 8th, and he hasn't seen her since Christmas Day. She's called a couple of times, even tracked down his avatar in World of Warcraft, but he has combated this by turning his phone off, not playing WoW, and not going out. It's been going really well so far.

“ _I_ didn't do anything,” he snaps.

“Oh,” she says, and pauses. Then she reaches out, and he grips hold of his blanket because she will pry it out of his cold, dead hands, but instead she hooks a finger around the waistband of his pants and tugs it down an inch.

“Alex!” he yells and scoots across to the end of the couch.

“Captain Jim Bob boxers,” she says wisely. “Things must be really bad.”

He feels his cheeks beginning to burn; nobody's supposed to know about the boxers thing. “Why don't you go terrorise someone else?”

“Mason sent me a Christmas card,” she replies. She pulls her knees up to her chest, and rests her chin on them.

“Right,” he says. She really can make any situation about her. It's like she can affect physics and make the world _actually_ revolve around her.

“He's in rehab,” she continues, “he's getting lycanthropic management therapy. And you know what? When I read it, I thought, 'wow, that is really weird', so I guess we're normal now.”

“I guess.”

“And it sucks.”

He looks over at her, and how she's managed to curl herself into a little ball of sadness, and knows that if they were at home, Mom would be baking her cookies and Dad would be digging out all her favourite DVDs. The thought of it makes him feel like a spiteful sixteen year old.

“So, you want to get back with Mason, then? 'Cause that ended _so_ well.”

“No, Justin,” she says with a sigh, like he's the stupid one. “But if I'd known how much I'd miss being a wizard, I'd have worked harder.”

“Well, I worked hard, and I still lost.”

She twists her mouth for a second. An evil look passes over her face, one that he hasn't seen in months. “Then I'd've cheated.” She uncurls herself and jumps up. “I've gotta go. By the way, the swamp monster manages to get into the shoe store and kills all the shoe salesmen.”

“Alex!” he yells, but she's already rushing toward the door.

-

Her boss eyes her suspiciously when she walks into the Cheesecake Factory.

“You aren't working today,” he says.

“I know.”

“You aren't getting any more free food.”

“I _know_ ,” she repeats. God, what is it with people and their _judgement_? “Is Bernadette here?”

He lifts his chin, indicating across the restaurant with a grunt. She makes her way over to Bernadette, picking up a breadstick from the table of someone deep in conversation with their friend as she passes.

“I wanted to ask you something,” she says, and takes a bite of the breadstick.

Bernadette jumps. “Oh! It isn't nice to sneak up on people like that!”

“Yeah,” she says. “So, do you really want to lose your you-know-whats just so that you can marry Howard?”

Bernadette's eyes flicker to the customers she's serving. “I don't think we should talk about this here.” She puts her hand on Alex's shoulder and leads her back across the restaurant floor. “I love Howard,” she says, when they're more safely out of random people's hearing ranges.

“Yeah, okay,” Alex says, because she's not even going to get into _that_. “But, if you could keep your powers, would you?”

She stammers for a second. “Yes? What are you asking me?”

She shrugs and takes another bite. “Nothing, that's all I wanted to know.”

-

The thing is, Alex doesn't do a lot of reading because she has better things to do with her life and not, contrary to popular opinion, because she is unable to. Sure, she finds it difficult to concentrate sometimes, and she doesn't always get exactly what all the old dead guys were getting at, but she's pretty sure that's because she has ADD. She has like at least half the symptoms listed on WebMD.

Anyway. A couple of days later, after talking to Bernadette, she sneaks into Max's lair while no one's home. Luckily – though she was banking on it – he's forgotten to charm the fridge door closed, and so she snags a carton of milk from the shelf and steps in.

Right now, it's full of packing peanuts – he wanted to turn it in ball pit, but Justin stopped him before they had to call out plastic exterminators. She wades across to the bookshelf. It's mostly full of junk and dried, dead animals, but there are a couple of books too: the first one a great slab of paper and ink, detailing every wizard law ever created, and the second a greasy-finger stained copy of the family spellbook. Their dad wisely decided that Max wasn't quite ready for the original, so they charmed a notebook to hold all its spells. As well as some peanut butter and stray chips.

She drags the law book off the shelf, drops it onto a table shaped like a spaceship, and flips to the middle. If she's lucky, the answer will be right there.

It isn't.

Several hours later, she finds her answer. At least she thinks she has. She slams the book closed and kneads her eyes with her knuckles. Urgh, all this reading is bad for her eyesight. She picks up the milk carton and takes a swig, only to discover that it's empty. Did she really drink a whole carton of 3% milk? Urgh, reading is bad for her waistline, too. She checks her watch – shit, she was meant to meet Dean half an hour ago.

Reading is just bad for her all round.

She replaces the law book on the shelf and grabs the spellbook before putting the empty carton back in the door of the fridge and running out of the apartment.

-

Her first thought when she sees Dean is that he's wearing shorts and that she's never seen his legs before. Her second thought is that he's still wearing that shirt.

“Aren't you cold?” she asks, sitting down next to him in the café. His hair is wet and his cheeks are pink.

“C'mon, Russo, we're from New York, this ai- isn't noth- anything.” He finishes his twitching with a shake of his head. “I've been learning to surf.”

“In the winter?”

He shrugs. “Hey, when in Italy, right?”

“Sure,” she says. She orders herself a double chocolate shake with whipped cream on the bottom, and Dean looks confused for a second before ordering the same.

She doesn't have a lot to say, so Dean fills in the gaps. Which he's been doing more and more, she's noticed – talking, buying her food, taking her to grungy late night drive-thrus to watch slasher movies.

“What's the book?” he says, interrupting her musing.

“Huh?”

“The book,” he repeats, pointing to her coat pocket. Max's spellbook.

“Oh, that's-” she starts, reaching down to hide it, but he grabs it before she can get there.

“Are you writin' about me in your diary again?” he asks, and he remembers that? She feels her cheeks heat up at the memory of it.

“ _No_. Give it back.”

“It's really... sticky,” he says, and gives her a look.

“It's not mine. Give it to me.” She clearly enunciates each word, reaching over the table towards him.

“I believe you,” he says, like he really doesn't. He holds the book over his head.

“I am not climbing you for it.” She sits back and crosses her arms.

“Okay.” He stands up, arm still stretched over his head. Damn boys and their freakish growth spurts.

“People are looking,” she tells him. “'Cause you look ridiculous in those shorts, mostly.”

He grins. “You know you're turned on by my legs, Russo.”

“Right,” she says, and she tries to hold her serious face in place, but she can't help but crack a smile. He lowers his arm in response, and he's looking at her face, more specifically, her mouth. Despite what Harper and Justin probably think (considering the _So You're Sexually Active!_ pamphlet she found on her bed), the last time they even kissed was two years ago.

He takes a couple of steps towards her and she sits forward, but before anything romcom-like can happen, a waitress bumps into him, and he drops the book. Which just so happens to fall open on the table. So, maybe a little romcom.

“What-” he begins before she snatches the book up and stuffs it into her bag.

“I should be going,” she says quickly. She takes a step back, and then after a moment's thought, zips in to give him a kiss on cheek. “Call me, we'll do lunch,” she calls, hot-footing it out of the café.

-

“I have a... hypothermic question.”

Justin looks up from his textbook. Alex has been particularly strange the past couple of days. He asked her if it had anything to do with the pamphlet he found in his (thank you very much) room, but she just made gagging noises for the rest of night every time she saw him.

“Do you _really_?” he says.

“Oh, don't look at me like that!” She sits down across the counter from him, casually pushing his piles of notes out of the way, sending most of them to the floor. “Okay, so here's the thing: if a wizard marries a non-wizard, they lose their power. And if two wizards get married, they both keep their powers, right?”

“Yeah,” he says, sliding out of his chair to retrieve his notes. Thank God he numbered them.

“Right,” she continues, “but if two wizards marry, and one of them then loses their powers, the other doesn't have to give theirs up too.”

He sorts his notes into a neat pile on the ground and stops, then stands up again. “I... don't know, actually.”

“I do.” She produces a book, which presumably she'd been hiding for dramatic purposes, and thumps it down on the table. “Here,” she says, flipping to a dog-eared page, “see?”

She's right. It clearly says that if a wizard, 'through accident, injury, or stupidity, loses his or her powers, their wizard spouse shall not be penalised'.

“How did you find this?”

“I read the book,” she says.

“No, really.”

She raises her eyebrows. Wow. Okay. He didn't think she even knew that 'penalised' wasn't genitalia related.

“Here's the thing,”she says. “If a wizard marries someone _when_ they have powers, that's a legit wizard wedding. So what I want to know is: is there a spell that temporarily gives someone powers? I looked through Max's spellbook, but some of the pages are stuck together.”

She pushes the spellbook over to him, though he'd really rather he didn't have to touch it. “What is this about, Alex?”

She puts on the best approximation of innocence that she can. “General curiosity?”

Alex doesn't do curiosity, not of the general kind, at least. “Are you hooking up with Mason again?”

“Justin!” She throws her hands in the air and turns in a frustrated circle. “We've already been over this: he's in rehab and when he gets out he's not allowed within fifty feet of a mortal until his probation is over. It. Isn't. Happening.”

“Well, you've just been talking about him a lot recently.” That, and he's honestly not sure which degenerate is worse. Mason might occasionally eat people, but Dean's been tearing around the city on the scooter that Howard suped up, scaring the old ladies that Justin plays chess with in the park. “Hang on... Is this about Bernadette and Howard? Why would you care? What would you gain from this... Are you blackmailing Bernadette to do your bidding?!”

She rolls her eyes. “My 'bidding'? You have a nasty mind, brother. I just want to know if it's possible, but if you don't want to help...” She collects up the books and flounces out of the kitchen.

She is totally up to something.

-

“What is with everyone's faces at the moment?” The question tickles against Penny's ear and she jumps, upending several of the glasses on her tray. She glances around to find Alex staring at her in that unnerving way she has. Not as bad as Harper, but still pretty creepy.

“Shouldn't you be taking orders?” she asks, at least three annoyed, unserved customers in her eyeline.

“It's my break,” Alex says, sticking close to her as Penny carries the dirty dishes to the kitchen.

“No, it isn't,” Penny tells her, it was her break half an hour ago. And half an hour before that, and half an hour before _that_. Alex doesn't let up her creepy stare.

“What's up with you and Justin?” she asks.

“Nothing. What did he say?”

“That it wasn't his fault. Which just leaves you. Look, I don't care, but I need Justin's help with something and he's difficult to work with when he's sulking.”

“I... don't want to talk about it,” Penny mutters.

Alex shrugs, but doesn't move from her position leaning against the counter.

“He... he told me he loved me,” Penny blurts, to an approving look from Alex. “I didn't say it back.”

Alex laughs. “Oh, is that all?” She swats Penny on the arm. “ _Plenty_ of girls haven't said 'I love you' back to him. He'll get over that. Honestly, I'm surprised he waited so long, he takes 'love at first sight' kinda literally.” She pushes herself away from the counter, still laughing.

“Justin has a type,” she says, moving towards the door, “and you're it. He'll come crawling back sooner or later.”

Penny hadn't thought it was possible to actually feel _worse_ than she already did about Justin, but Alex is always full of surprises.

-

Bernadette has her bridal shower on Valentine's Day. Alex thinks it's sickening (made worse by the fact that _Harper_ is on the decorating committee, and Alex had the misfortune of seeing a page of her sketch book), but no one's asking for her opinion. Just her money.

They have it at Penny's, whose apartment can barely fit four people comfortably, but ends up with at least fifteen twenty-somethings and a staggering amount of heart shaped paraphernalia.

“Shouldn't you be out with your boyfriend?” Penny asks, guarding an entire tray of mojitos in the kitchen.

Alex briefly pats her phone through her jeans; she hasn't seen Dean for a couple of weeks, but he texts her every couple of days, and she's not sure how long she can use 'I'm out of credit' as an excuse.

“Talked to Justin lately?” she replies.

“He went into the kitchen and never came back out when I went to Giacomo's,” Penny says, and looks down at her tray of drinks. “They have enough drinks over there, right?”

Alex glances over her shoulder; Amy and Harper are looking at an assortment of sex toys while Bernadette covers her face with her hands.

“They're good.” When she's turns back, Penny is holding a pink plastic glass out to her.

“To Cupid,” Penny says.

“Don't give him any ideas,” Alex mumbles into her drink.

-

The pounding behind her eyes tells that it's morning, and the wet patch underneath her cheek tells her that she's lying down, though she would beg to differ. She cracks one eye open.

“Hello, sunshine,” Justin says, sitting on the edge of her bed.

“Eurghhh,” she replies, and shuts her eye. Maybe she's dreaming. The bed bounces slightly beneath her.

“I can feel your judgement,” she says. Her voice sounds like she smoked ten packs of cigarettes last night, and feels like she ate sandpaper. Both of which may well be true. “Quit it.”

“Turnabout is fairplay,” he says.

“I don't know what that means.” She tries an experimental vertical move. “Ohhh no,” she murmurs and flops back down.

“It means 'it's not so funny when it's you who's hungover'.”

She feels for a pillow to hit him with but loses the will before she finds one. “How did I even get home?”

“How do you think? And you're cleaning my car later.”

She grunts something that even she's not sure of the meaning, and buries her head in the mattress. The bed bounces slightly again and then Justin says, “There's water and Tylenol on the table,” before closing the door quietly.

She feels bad for a moment, because she sure as shit wouldn't be this nice to him (and, in fact, wasn't), but then she falls asleep again.

An indeterminate amount of time later, Justin's back in the room, louder and nag...gier? (she decides that yes, this is an acceptable word), telling her that she should get up and have a shower. “You'll feel better for it.”

“I will throw up on you,” she counters brilliantly.

“You already did, so... Also, you have a visitor.”

She opens her eyes and tries sitting up again. It's not quite so devastating this time. “Is it the cops?” She has this vague feeling that she may have broken a law last night. “Tell them I've skipped the country.”

“Do I look like a cop to you, Russo?”

She considers diving back under the covers when she sees Dean round the door, but she doesn't think the jackhammer in her head could handle it. Justin leaves them alone with a sly smile and a look as she nonverbally orders him to stay. Really, what is the point of him?

“You told me some pretty interesting things on the phone last night, Russo. I think we need to talk.”

He says it so seriously that for a moment she doesn't recognise him. He's never wanted to talk about anything weightier than which grills would look sweeter on his car; this is the first time she's ever seen him as an adult.

Is the world absolutely sure that this isn't a dream?

-

Half an hour later, she sits uneasily in the kitchen in a fluffy robe, her wet hair dripping down her neck. Everyone but her and Dean have cleared out, because even hungover, she can scare the crap out of these people.

“So yeah,” she says. She tests how hot her cup of coffee is: too hot, but she can't wait any longer. “I should let you know that I don't remember anything that happened last night after the fifth mojito, so... do we really need to talk?”

“Russo,” he says. “You told me that you were a wizard.”

Oh, and he's just going to get right down to it, huh? She thought there'd be some kind of preamble, but no, he never was a very complex person. As she racks her sluggish brain for something to say, he continues.

“And at first, you know, I didn't think about it, 'cause I've been wasted – like, wake up two states over wasted, and I've told people I was the King of England and shit like that. But then, I started thinking.”

That, historically, has never been a good idea for him.

“Some stuff started to make sense to me. Like, how you guys used hang out in your freezer. I used to think that you were training for the Iditarod or somethin'.”

“Dean,” she says, and pauses. Shit. “What's the Iditarod.”

His eyes go wide, like he didn't actually believe what he was saying until right now. “Your psycho werewolf boyfriend _ate_ me!”

“Ex,” she amends, and, “yeah,” she says, but oh, he's not done.

“And that Ronald McDonald dude encased me in jello!”

Ronald...? “Ronald Longcape Jr? You remember that?”

“Yeah, I wasn't unconscious for all of it.”

Is it possible that he's not as stupid as he looks? She couldn't be more surprised if Max became a rocket scientist (okay, well, maybe she would be a _little_ more surprised by that, but not by much). “Why didn't you say anything?”

He shrugged. “I smoked a lot of pot in high school. I mean, a lot. I just figured that I got a bad batch. I've got to admit, I did start to wonder about my dealer.”

“That explains... almost everything,” she says.

“People tell me that,” he replies. “So... show me some magic.”

“I... can't.” This is one thing she likes about keeping the wizard world a secret: no embarrassing explanations. “I was a wizard, but I'm not any more.”

“Huh?”

“It's complicated, but basically Max is the only one who can do magic now.”

Dean nods sagely, for an awkwardly long amount of time. “Kid seems to have a good head on his shoulders,” he says finally.

She guesses a person can only change _so much_.

-

 **Spring**

So, this is the plan: Alex is going to save the day.

It's a good plan. It involves glory, praise, and sticking two fingers up at authority figures (something that Alex, sadly, hasn't been doing lately). It's that addictive rabble-rousing, always being one step ahead of the rest of the world. It is Alex's one true and pure calling in life.

But first, there's finals.

Bernadette and Howard are getting married at the beginning of May, in a neutral location: the Athenaeum at CalTech (maybe she's not the best judge, but it seems to Alex that getting married at your place of work sends weird signals about the levels of commitment involved in both). Harper's nearly done with the bridesmaids dress, a fact that she's taken to informing Alex of every morning, almost as if she knows that the very existence of them is torturing Alex.

By the end of March, the apartment has become a nonstop thoroughfare of nerds, and a constant source of coffee and doorstop sized books. She's pretty sure Justin has given up sleep, judging by the way he looks and how he's making even less sense than normal.

Amid the sea of pocket protectors and taped up glasses, she snags a seat at the kitchen counter in time for Harper to dole out pancakes.

“Those are for the boys,” she says as Alex pulls a plate towards herself.

Alex starts to stab holes in the topmost pancakes, before smiling evilly at Harper.

“Okay, have them!” Harper snaps. “ _No_ pancake monsters!”

“Thank you, Harper,” Alex sing-songs. She tops them off with a generous helping of chocolate sauce and digs in as Harper takes the rest of the food into the living room. Justin's nerdy friends practically throw themselves at the heaped plates, it's a little bit disturbing.

“You should know off the bat that I don't really care about the answer, but: are they okay?” she asks as Harper returns. She hates to give any impression that she cares about these people, but really... “Is Zeke crying?”

Harper looks resigned to the ridiculousness of her boyfriend. “He is. Sheldon's Quantum Mechanics final is coming up next week.” This revelation is punctuated by a wail of sorrow from Zeke.

“Man,” Alex says, taking a bite of pancake. “I love art school.”

-

The Quantum Mechanics final is Justin's last final exam, and by far the hardest. This, Justin's sure, is because Sheldon models himself after Professor Snape, which is frustrating on many different levels, not least the amount of misinformation that those books spread about the wizarding community.

Anyway. The wait outside the exam room is like waiting to attend your own funeral, and the exam almost is the funeral for some of his classmates. Sheldon didn't give them any extra time because of the EMTs, though.

“I need a drink!” Zeke cries afterwards.

“You don't drink,” Justin says, “you know how you get when you do.” There are only so many times that he can Zeke in just his tighty whiteys.

Zeke's bottom lip quivers. “I know,” he chokes out. “I just need to be alone!” He bolts from the hall, limbs flailing. From experience Justin expects to see him again in four-six hours.

In his pocket, his phone buzzes with a text message, which reads:

 **Need 10 liter tub of glu & 1kg glitter asap. Alex.**

A moment later another text pops up, simply reading: **Max a pain get home asap.**

He assumes that she's just learnt what 'ASAP' means.

*

“ _Just in_ time! See what I did there? Justin? Just-in?”

Alex sniggers around a mouthful of pocorn. “That was his campaign slogan for school president.”

Harper swoops on him the moment he steps through the door, relieving him of his bags of glitter, which leaves him unencumbered to survey the whirlwind of destruction in his apartment.

“Uncle Kelbo? What are you doing here?”

“I can't visit my favourite brother's kids?” he says expansively, throwing his arms wide. Alex ducks as his hand passes by her.

“Not from my experience, no.” He pauses to look at Alex, surrounded by stacks of paper and yellowing books. “Alex?”

“What?” She sits back and looks down at the counter. “Oh, this? This is saving the day. Look.”

She spins one the books around so that it faces him. He steps around dress dummies and metres of party streamers. “What is...” He flips the book closed to check the cover. “This is a book of forbidden spells, Alex!”

She waves a finger at him. “Very observant. It also has a spell for giving mortals temporary powers. Max is being awkward about casting it.”

“Because it's forbidden,” Justin finishes for her. “Do you know how much trouble he could get into? Did you tell her about this, Uncle Kelbo?”

Kelbo puts on his best innocent face, which Alex clearly inherited off him, and wanders into the living room to fiddle with Harper's glittery, splodgy bridesmaids dresses.

“Come on, you know he doesn't care about that. He's just been watching a lot of cop shows and he thinks he can 'make a deal'. Max!” she hollers.

Max pops his head out from around the fridge door.

“Look,” she says, “if we let you sleep in the fridge, instead of the bathroom, will you do this spell for me?”

Max screws up his face as if in deliberation. “Deal!” he says a moment later, sticking out a hand for Alex to shake. She cranes her neck to look at it.

“If you don't mind, I'll pass on the handshake.”

He looks down at his hand and shrugs. “Whatever.”

Justin skim reads the rest of the spell while they bicker; it's a doozy of a spell, very dangerous, and very hard to pull off effectively. “You do know that this spell takes more than one person to do, right? Like, at least four.”

Alex glances back from slamming the fridge door closed. “Then I guess my plus one's gonna turn into a plus four.”

-

It's easier to get Bernadette to agree to the plan than Alex thought it would be. Bernadette seems like, well, an uptight goody two shoes Catholic school girl, but the chick clearly has some issues. Evidenced by the one-sided conversation Alex is party to as she hangs on the phone.

“ _Mom_!” Bernadette roars, setting the hairs on the back of Alex's neck on end. “I am not wearing gramma's girdle!”

“Something old?” Alex ventures.

“Urgh!” Bernadette replies.

“Great. So, we're gonna have to do this like half an hour before the wedding. And you're going to have to tell Howard. Justin says it's immoral not to, or something.”

Bernadette shrieks in disgust at something. Alex holds the phone away from her ear. “I'll take that as 'thank you, Alex'.”

-

 **The Day**  
 _T-Minus 7 hours_

Alex doesn't really like to be complimentary about anything, lest people begin to think that she cares (which is particularly dangerous if she wants to continue to ironically hang out with her hipster friends), but the Athenaeum _is_ kind of awesome.

“This place is awesome,” Dean says. Against what some might say is her better judgement, she's brought him along as her date ('but don't get any ideas,' she warns him, 'my daddy has told me how _boys_ think').

“It's okay,” she says. It would be okay-er (another totally acceptable word) if she wasn't here at the ass crack of dawn with Harper to start decorating. Or to start watching Harper decorate, which she is doing at records speeds, stringing garlands of flowery things along the arches, spreading barrels of glitter on the stone floor, and dragging Zeke all over the place to hang decorations in places she can't reach. Which he's happy to do – he loves to do tall people things. Justin said he'd come along later, which Alex guesses is because he fears running into Penny, but for once she didn't bring it up. Maybe she's getting soft in her old age.

“Maybe I'm a good influence on you, Russo,” Dean says.

When did she start saying her thoughts out loud again?

“Just now,” he replies.

“Nice tux,” she says. It's at least two sizes too big for him, and clearly he doesn't know how to tie a bowtie, but it's the first time she's seen him out of his Doug shirt, so it's a pretty momentous occasion.

“Thanks. My uncle Jimmy was almost buried in it, but my aunt thought it was too good to go six feet under with him. I think she ended up dressing him in his fanciest pair of pyjamas. Sleeping was his favourite activity, though.”

She has to ask. “Just how many uncles and aunts do you have?”

He shrugs. “I don't know, it's seems like a lot, doesn't it?”

*

 _T-Minus 1 hour_  
Agnes Rostenkowski is terrifying; she puts Penny in mind of Mary Cooper, only considerably, _considerably_ louder. She and Bernadette argue like Howard and his mom (i.e. through the closed dressing room door after Bernadette slams it in her face). The entire morning has so far been quite disturbing.

Penny breathes a sigh of relief as Agnes's yells die down, and she goes back to removing the rollers from Bernadette's hair.

“Hold still,” Amy says, wielding an eyeliner.

“I don't think you should...” Bernadette starts, only to be cut off by a knock at the door. “ _Your church group isn't invited, ma_!” she screams, jerking away from the oncoming eyeliner.

“It's, it's Justin,” Justin says nervously, muffled through the door.

“Oh, come in!” she chirps.

“Hey, Bernadette,” he says. His eyes flicker to Penny. “Hey,” he repeats more quietly. He looks good in a suit, she thinks. “Um, Howard's, Howard's ready.”

“I'll be there in a minute.”

“You'll be where?” Penny says, scooting back as Bernadette gets up from the chair.

“Nowhere!” she says happily, bustling out after Justin.

“But it's bad luck!” Penny yells after her, and then after a moment's thought, “More bad luck than marrying Howard!”

*

 _T-Minus 40 minutes_

  
Ever since Justin picked Howard up from Raj's this morning – figuratively and literally – all he's said is several different permutations of 'this is a joke, right?'. Apparently Bernadette turning a vase into a goat could easily have been faked. Apparently being in a room with four wizards also isn't convincing.

Alex has collected a veritable dream team of Kelbo, Max, Hugh, and, of course, Bernadette.

“I've never been to a wedding before!” Hugh says as they assemble around Kelbo's spellbook. He adjusts his tiny yarmulke.

“Okay guys, I don't know how gentiles celebrate weddings, but-”

“Shush!” Bernadette says, leaning over the book to read the spell more closely. “So, this only lasts a couple of hours?”

“If that,” Justin says. “It's really volatile. And dangerous, did I mention dangerous?”

Alex elbows him out of the way. “Stop being such a party pooper! Gentlemen, and lady, pull out your wands. Sexual innuendo intended. Max, why don't you begin?”

Max squints at the page. “Boring mortal Howard with powers none, have a taste of wizard's one – way in which they excel, from the magic in this spell.”

Each of them chime in after the person to their right has said 'mortal', like a cacophonous school choir with added wands. They stand in a circle, wand tips touching, repeating the words over and over until the wands begin to glow bright white. A bolt shoots up at of the circle then zig zags left and hits Howard square in the chest. He falls backwards off his chair and the glow abruptly dies.

“I feel vaguely dirty now,” Alex says.

*

They lock Howard in broom closet. It's really the only thing to do – the spell is so volatile that Howard can't even keep a lid on it for five minutes.

“If anyone is arrested, or injured, it's going to be _your fault_ , Alex! And don't think I won't flip on you for a shorter sentence.” Justin braces one foot on the wall and holds onto the handle for dear life as it rattles.

“Calm down, brother,” she says, then turns right round to Hugh and hisses, “Do something!”

“Me? What do you want me to do?” He shuffles away from her, then keeps on shuffling until he's halfway down the hallway, on the way to the exit.

“Get back here!” Justin yells.

“Coward!” Alex adds.

“Let me out!” Howard shouts, muffled from inside the closet.

“Maybe we should call Jerry,” Kelbo says, shifting nervously.

“If you've broken my fiancée...” Bernadette begins.

Alex puts her thumb and fore finger to her mouth and whistles. They quieten down. “No,” she says to Kelbo, waving a finger at him like she's training a dog. Then she turns the finger to Bernadette. “And he'll be fine, okay, just let me think.”

She narrows her eyes, and Justin assumes that this is her thinking face. He wouldn't know, he's never seen it before.”

“Guys?” The voice is Raj's, obviously quite drunk already. He, Penny, Leonard, and Sheldon loiter at the other end of the hallway.

“Dean, get rid of them!” Alex snaps.

“Uh,” he says, and the group moves closer. Really, she picked the world's only Godfather wannabe who can't spin a line off the cuff. Justin shakes his head at Alex.

“What are you doing?” Penny asks.

“Nothing, I'm just...” Justin tries to relax his posture while keeping a grip on the handle. “...hanging out?” He cannot, however, keep the question out of his voice.

Bernadette opens her arms wide in an attempt to hustle them away. “Everything's great! Are Harper and Zeke okay? Do they need help? Let's go help them!” Her voice rises a pitch with every sentence.

There's a brief burst of light beneath the door. The handle starts to warm, then rapidly heat. “Shit,” Justin mutters, and lets go. “I suggest everyone get on the ground!”

What happens next is like... no, it _is_ a ball of fire that bursts forth and hits the thankfully stone wall, dissipating quickly.

“Guys?” Leonard says, tone more than a little wavering, but he's all the way over there out of harm's way, and to be honest Justin doesn't really like him.

All of a sudden, Max is scrambling to his feet, allowing Justin to notice that the hair on the back of his head is singed. “Max-!”

Max holds up a hand. “I got this.” He removes his wand from his belt and holds it up high. “This guy's on fire, it's not good, so make us a... rain shower in this... 'hood.”

It's one of the worst put together spells that Justin's ever heard, but somehow, miraculously, it works. A grey rain cloud forms above Howard.

“Aw, now my tux is wet!” Howard says, shaking water out of his hair. “At least the magical fire didn't burn my clothes. This is a rental, you know.”

Justin looks up at his brother. “Wow, Max...”

“Don't worry about it,” he says. He blows on the end of his wand, spins it in his fingers, and sticks it behind his ear.

“You know you got burnt on the back of your head, right?”

He shrugs. “Didn't even feel it.”

“What...” Penny approaches carefully, stepping around the growing puddle as much as she can.

“So, you're wizards,” Sheldon says, looking at them like they're guinea pigs. Oh God, and they probably are to him.

“Short answer,” Alex says, “yes.”

Sheldon, Raj, and Leonard confer for a moment. Then Raj steps forward and takes a breath. “That... is really cool.”

“I knew there was something about you, Justin,” Sheldon says airily. “Your low marks in my class make sense now.”

The rest of them pick themselves up off the floor, and Justin hears talk of them finding a blowdryer for Howard. Max suggests another spell, but Alex snatches the wand out of his hand before he can perform it. They aren't going to get lucky twice. Justin looks up at Penny. She looks confused and freaked out, and he knows that this revelation is probably going to cancel out all of her indiscretions.

“I don't think I'm ready for an adult relationship.”

She smiles slightly. “Yeah, me neither.” She holds out her hand and he lets her pull him up.

 _T-Minus 0 minutes_

  
The wedding, and the plan, go off without a hitch.

Well. Howard manages to reduce every door he passes to splinters, and when he says 'I do', a flock of doves appear and then immediately dissolve into a cloud of feathers.

“This was your plan?” Harper whispers from the side of stage, picking feathers from her elaborate up do. She scrutinises one. “There are _fleas_ on these feathers!”

Alex turns her head towards Harper. “You did a great job with the whole wedding.” And she really did. Somehow the amoeba dresses and gallons of glitter turned out to be really elegant and fancy.

Harper beams. “I think we're supposed to clap now,” she says, drawing Alex's attention to the kissing couple.

“Oh! Nobody needs to see that!”

*

Their wedding song is 'She Blinded Me With Science'. Alex stands to the side, shaking her head.

“How did I know you Russos would be involved in this debacle?”

“Chancellor Rootie Tootie Tootie!” She steps out of his way as the little man emerges from a group of guests with what looks like a Geiger counter and comically magnified glasses.

“So how is it that a previously mortal man with non-wizard parents suddenly has powers?” he asks, waving the counter around the room. The needle shoots up as he waves it in the direction of the happy couple.

“Magic!” she says, not a bit of it a lie.

“Mm,” he says, and creeps further into party.

“Russo.” Dean wraps his arms around her waist. “Looks like your brother's getting lucky.”

She looks across the hall to find Justin and Penny poorly hidden in one of the arches, making out while Leonard stands by looking vaguely constipated and Priya looks disappointed in the choices she's made in her life.

“That'll end well,” she predicts. And she is sure that in a couple of weeks there's going to be another massive blow up and Justin will end up locking himself in the bathroom again, because Penny's group of weirdos are the only people Alex knows who are less mature than her and her friends. But, right now she's kind of happy for him, and she's kind of happy for Bernadette, too. It's an unsettlingly feeling.

“So, I was thinkin',” Dean continues. “I know a guy who knows a guy whose cousin's brother could get us a quick marriage license. You could be the newest Mrs Moriarty.”

“Oh my God, no,” she says. Really, no, all the glitter must be messing with Dean's brain. “We would kill each other.”

“I wouldn't kill you,” he says. Harper is making vague gestures from across the floor at them that suggest that she thinks they should be dancing. She should know by now that Alex and Dean are far too cool for anything like that.

Alex leans her head back against his shoulder. “Well, I can guarantee that I would kill you. But, if you're good, maybe you'll get lucky with one of the bridesmaids. No promises who it'll be, though.”

He nods slowly. “I'll take that bet.”


End file.
